Cracking the Da Vinci code in typography
Is the above typesetting pleasant to the eyes? It better be - as it is set according to the "divine proportion", ie: the PHI, as according to Professor Langdon.
Many years back I first read about setting type sizes as according to Fibonacci series. I didn’t really think much about that until the Dan Brown phenomena kicked in. Now that everyone is into cracking codes, it is time for me to revisit Robert Bringhurst’s insightful writings on the golden proportions.
That mysterious divine proportion of 1:1.61803. In layman english: the smaller part is roughly 38.2% and the larger part is 61.8%.
What you see above is the little experiment as typographic hierarchy expressed via type sizes chosen as according to the golden section, via a Fibonacci series:
5 . 8 . 13 . 21. 34 . 55 . 89
These type sizes whould be sufficient for most works.
Other scales could be created via the same series:
6 . 10 . 16 . 26 . 42 . 68 . 110
4. 7 . 11 . 18 . 29 . 47 . 76
Page sizes could also be determined as according to this relation. For many centuries Penguin books had been manufactured as according to 111 X 180 mm.
111 x 1.61803 = 179.6 (!)
Which also means a better height to accomodate the standard A4 width of 210mm is
210 x 1.61803 = 339.8
That’s something to think about.
And Da Vinci has nothing to do with this. Sorry for the misleading title.
(I am actually getting sick of hearing any mention of the Da Vinci code)
May 15th, 2006 at 8:56 am
Funny. How come Leonardo Da Vinci didn’t cut any type? Then, maybe then, Frank Pierpont might have way beaten Robert Langdon in cracking the Da Vinci code, typograpically.